My girlfriend and I were driving around today when we drove past a store
being operated out of some woman's garage called "Gift Fun Shop."
Obviously we decided to circle back around the block to check it out.
Upon circling the block we then passed a garage sale, so, after visiting
"Gift Fun Shop" and having a grand old time, we made another
half circle and went to the garage sale. We had nothing better to do with
our day. It was actually one of the better garage sales we've been to
lately, even though I only ended up buying a book for fifty-cents called
"Thoughts of the Young Radicals," published in 1966, no less.
Any which way, I took to reading this book because I find hippie politics
quaint. During my literary orgy of self-amusement I came upon upon a passage
relating to the Vietnam War, lack of domestic social reform and the "impotence"
of the general public to influence government decision-making that I found
really interesting. Essentially this writer guy, Todd Gitlin, says that
the public has been pushed out of politics by an elite group's self-interest
in free enterprise and their use of specialized knowledge. Now, I had
always accepted as general truth that the most influential members of
the federal government acted in their own self-interest, especially in
regards to economic benefit, when making legislative decisions. However,
I had never considered framing this generally exploitative behavior merely
in terms of their privileged access to information. Once the problem is
defined in these terms, it can be argued that politicians, with their
access to specialized information, are now in possession of an indisputable
expertise that makes them not only better qualified but, in fact, the
only people qualified to make legislative decisions. By merely limiting
our access to information about defense, foreign policy, national security
and economics (to name a few) our government has cut out the entire population
from the legislative process. This in and of itself is sort of bad, but
what is worse, if you accept that childhood is a social construct and
in some sense a byproduct of an adult's wealth of specialized knowledge
(on account of formal education and/or technical training), by limiting
our access to information (and hence our ability to be formally and/or
self-educated on these matters), our federal government has established
their elite circle as adults and by doing so has reduced the general population
to children. In other terms, they are the enlightened monarchs and we
are the ignorant serfs that are supposed to be grateful for their wise
decrees. So, this is where you come in. There is a point to why I am writing
you after all; I promise. Alright, so I was driving to pick my girlfriend
up from class earlier today. I do a lot of driving. And I was listening
to NPR because there never is anything better on. Truthfully I'd rather
listen to music, but the radio has sucked a big one since the late 90's,
but I'm not going to point any fingers. Anyway, there was some random
celebrity on NPR (I never got his name) and he was rambling on about the
elevated status of celebrities in our society. In his opinion, he feels
that because of our "ambivalent" attitude toward celebrity in
our culture, they have been elevated to the level of nobility. His reasoning
was that they were given unquestioning access to an elite society that
most everyone else was denied on account of what must presumably be everyone
else's inherent serfdom. And this has really got me wondering whether
access to be amongst the elite society of specialized knowledge is the
same as being part of the elite society of specialized knowledge. Especially
when you consider that there are people like Madonna, Angelina Jolie and
Bono juggling African babies and debt relief while riding unicycles for
the UN general assembly. Have these people really gained access to this
society? Are they imparted with the same sort of specialized information
as say, a diplomat to the UN? Or are they, as I suspect, merely court
jesters allowed to wander the halls of the UN to appease the King? I ask
you this because your history shows that you have risen out of the squalor
of the masses to the prominent level of a Pop Princess and now you are
floundering on the the railing of the castle's outer-fortification. If
you regain your stability, you will be able to step safely back within
the castle, but if you shift even slightly in the wrong way you will quickly
be waddling in the muck with the rest of us. And with this unique perspective
upon class that very few people of your stature currently have, I was
wondering if you have any insight into the matter of privilege and our
society? I mean how would you compare yourself to someone like, say, Scooter
Libby in terms of a breach of privilege? Albeit you are both seemingly
members of the aristocracy that stepped out of line, would it be fair
to say that he is he an adult that is being judiciously penalized for
improper use of guarded knowledge and are you merely a petulant child
being sent to bed early? Or am I completely off base? A timely answer
would be appreciated. I'm really trying to sort this out before Monday.